To Go Beyond
by Clarra-Night
Summary: MAY HAVE SPOILERS FOR INFINITY WAR. Sequel to 'Us, In The End'. Thousands of years into the future after their deaths, Thor and Loki explore Valhalla, and wonder what it could be like to go beyond.
1. Chapter 1

**I should be asleep right now. ****There was going to be a funny second half to that first sentence, but I should be asleep right now, so I'm too tired to write it properly.**

**I've been wanting to write this particular fic for the past several months, but it gave way to "Until A Point", as well as other general life - I'm honestly relieved to have gotten this first chapter written in between the things I'm supposed to be doing. **

**This is basically a sequel to "Us, In The End". This fic's version of Valhalla and the 'scrying' property of the ocean floor are based on those in "Us, In The End", so this first chapter will probably make more sense if you have already read the prequel (sorry). **

**I'm hoping this story will be timeless in terms of canon and the release of Endgame and whatever follows (holy ****moly), since this story takes place a couple thousand years into the future... **

**Anyway, I hope you enjoy this starting chapter. Hopefully more to come soon (I have the storyline more or less planned out but making enough time to write it is another story, which I shouldn't start because I want to write this story first, and holy moly I should be asleep right now). **

**Okay, goodnight. **

* * *

The beach feels different this time.

The sand is powdered white gold that seems luxurious under the scuffed heels of his boots. The sunlight is just shy of glaring off the stretches of sand and glassy blue water; a patchy veil of clouds from the storm several days ago keep it from burning too brightly. The ocean whispers, but not secrets, just nonsense that he easily ignores.

He knows the place itself is mostly the same as it always had been since he began going there two and a half thousand years ago, to use the ocean as a scrying glass into the realms below. He had ignored the luxurious sand, and the sunlight, in favour of wading waist-deep into the teal waves. He peered through Valhalla's ocean floor to snatch glimpses of the people – the person – he had left behind to live without him.

But this time, it is just a beach, and he does not take one step into the ocean. It is how it should be.

Loki knows this is something – everything – to do with his companion treading a matching trail in the powder-soft sand beside him.

It had not been until Thor had truly died and entered Valhalla that Loki had wondered if the centuries between them would have seen Thor evolve into someone too different to feel like his brother. If he would still never meet his older brother again.

When they were alive, Thor himself had lectured him once that life was all about growth and change – it would be not unexpected if the dead man beside him now was different to the one in Loki's last living memories. Meanwhile, Loki had spent the past two and a half thousand years in a luxurious, stagnant afterlife like a lake of melted pearl. Not that he had been particularly apt at growth and change in his living years, according to Thor.

For the most part, superficially, Thor seems more or less the same to him. There are slightly more creases around his blue-grey eyes – from ageing, crying, laughing, or all three if Loki were in the habit of optimism – and his voice has an aged tenor to it like a timeworn lute or krogharpe.

But Thor still holds himself upright, as though he can still summon his battle-axe from nowhere at any moment to lead or annihilate an army. Thor had hugged him when he had arrived in Valhalla's garden; his burly arms around Loki's comparatively narrow shoulders had felt the same.

Two and a half thousand years later, Thor glances at him, and it seems the same. It is how it should be.

"So." Thor says. "What's new with you?"

Loki lets the salt breeze speak for a second before he answers just as breezily. "Very little. What we read about Valhalla as children was true. It's eternal, unchanging. Although none of the books made any mention of 'dull'…"

Thor grins and pats his shoulder. "I take it you've become much the same, except for dull."

Loki raises an eyebrow. "What, unchanging?"

"I've been dead not even twenty-four hours, and already I can tell you're the same as you were two or three thousand years ago when you were alive with me." Thor's grin is still on his face, so perhaps he means this is a good thing. Or at least, more or less tolerable.

"Well, clearly Valhalla is merely a haven and not a purgatory," Loki replies. "You're the one who spent the past few millennia in the realms of the living. What's new with _you_?"

Thor touches his temples. "My hair's grown back. And I have both eyes now. Can't you tell?"

"I can tell, Brother."

"Good. Took you a while to comment."

Loki tilts his head. "Do you really want me to make more comments on your appearance?"

"That's a fair point."

"At least you lost the bird helmet."

"My dear cow-horned brother, we aren't starting this again in the afterlife."

"Then tell me what else has changed with you," Loki says. "You were the one who lectured me that life was all about growth and change, while _electrocuting _me, if you'll recall – "

Thor snorts. "Still finicky with petty details. You really haven't changed a bit, Brother."

Thor's grin softens to a smile. If they have reached a point where Loki is meant to be as he is, then there has definitely been change somewhere.

"Be glad." Loki shrugs. "That should make it easier for us to catch up after so long."

He knows Thor knows he is only joking, but both their smiles are suddenly unsteady, like twin tightrope walkers.

Loki supplies, "On the other hand, apart from growing out of that pixie cut, I see your hair started to go grey before you died. Dear lord, Brother, you're really looking like our father's son…"

He meant it to distract, but sees something else for the briefest second in Thor's eye. It looks like a memory from his view, or grief, or both. He wonders what it looks like from Thor's. When Thor replies, Loki decides it is something they can let rest until his now much-older brother resurrects it himself.

"It was a long two and a half thousand years, Loki."

He does not sound angry, but even Loki knows when it is time to shut up and move on.

"Did you washthat new eyeball before you put it in?"

"Mother and Father already asked me that – "

"Well, did you?"

"Uh – "

"…Thor…"

Thor pats his shoulder again, harder than necessary. "We're dead now, so it doesn't matter."

Loki straightens up. "That's going to be a useful excuse for lots of things, I think."

To their right, the waves turn in their slow dance along the horizon. His older brother, Loki realises, is still to learn that more than fish and coral can be seen in Valhalla's ocean.

Frigga and Odin had refrained from telling Loki at first, when he had arrived. Perhaps there had been wisdom in this – Loki had, in fact, done exactly what they feared he would do, going to the ocean nearly every day to stare into whatever life he could have been a part of.

But that would not be a problem with Thor. Thor has already lived his long life. Thor has everyone already there in Valhalla with him. He would be curious enough to scry several times, but the beach would stay just a beach to him.

Loki glances at him. Thor is already watching him curiously.

"Why do you keep staring at the sea, Loki?"

Thor's tone asks for honesty. Loki gives it. "There are other things about Valhalla that never made it into our old books, Thor."

He veers their path rightwards to the shoreline. There are rippling lines of darker gold sand where the water has lapped and left lips of foam. Along the water's edge, a necklace of crimson seaweed, a fan-shaped seashell the size of Loki's palm, and a half-finished sandcastle are lain out like dealt cards.

Thor frowns but follows him easily. "What are you talking about?"

"I'll show you."

Thor is still frowning beside him. "We're not going to destroy that sandcastle, are we?"

Loki glances over his shoulder at him. "Even when we were alive, when would I have ever done that?"

"Well, you tried to take over New York."

"I doubt taking over that sandcastle would have the same tyrannical benefits."

"You'd probably win this time though."

"We aren't starting this again in the afterlife."

They pass between the seaweed and the shell. The foam touches the toes of their boots.

"So what are we doing?" Thor asks.

"Just shut up and I'll show you."

* * *

They are no longer summoning images through Valhalla's seafloor, but they still stand waist-deep in the cool water. The invisible currents pulse calmly around them as though giving his brother time to absorb what he had just witnessed. Loki counts the passing seconds along with the waves like a metronome, and waits.

Thor says at last, "So anyone in Valhalla can simply wade into these waters and see into the living realms?"

Loki nods. "The ocean floor is the thinnest border of this realm, which is lodged in the perfect position in Yggdrasil's branches to view the other eight."

Thor is still gazing into the clear saltwater, though all that greets them now is the sand floor. "I see."

"That was the point." Loki quirks an eyebrow at him; he doubts he will ever tire of the expression.

Thor ignores the jest in favour of skimming his palms over the velvet water surface. Uneasily, Loki starts to wonder if he was mistaken in thinking his brother would not do what he did, and ache for more life.

Loki breaks the silence again, "Mother and Father kept it from me the first day I was here."

Thor nods without looking up. "To futilely try to stop you from pining for the life you left."

"I never _pined _– " Loki's tone is close to snapping, but as is, it just sounds indignant.

Thor says, "I can see their reasoning, though I doubt you agreed with it."

Eons later, the assumption in Thor's words still itches. Loki replies, "That one day of blissful ignorance made no difference to the millennia I spent watching the other realms from up here. But I never regretted spending that one day simply with her and Father."

The hush of the ocean enfolds them. Finally Thor looks up, and at him. It surprises Loki that his brother's eyes are strangely gentle.

"Did you come here often, before I arrived?"

Loki lets the salt breeze speak for a second before he answers.

"It was a long two and a half thousand years, Thor."

* * *

**P.S. Thank you to everyone who has been giving love and support for "Until A Point" (and my other fics). **

**And to the people who I have PM threads with: *waves* :) **


	2. Chapter 2

**I had wished many times over the past several busy months _I want my life back_. I like that fanfiction was always a key part of said life. ****(I love you for being here, by the way).**

**There is a distinct storyline planned for this fic, and I get impatiently excited and excitedly impatient thinking about writing it out, and hope I don't die before I finish. **

**Anyway, I don't even remember writing Chapter 1, but here we go.**

* * *

_It was like a rebirth. When his eyes opened, there was no pain or ache of life left in his bones like he had expected, only a strange freshness as though he had returned from a long hike through a wintry forest. And his brother was there to greet him with only love._

_ "__Where are they?" _

_Loki's answer: he led the way to a radiant citadel that Thor could name without being told._

_In a silent hall, Thor waited as he heard his brother announce, almost gravely, "he's home."_

_Two ancient, familiar faces filled Thor's vision. He felt their arms encircle him._

_(It was like a rebirth – the presence of his parents filled the world as if he were a baby staring up from his cradle)_

_For a long while, there was only the sound of two quiet, steady breaths in his ear._

* * *

_They strolled through one of the hundred courtyards, between crabapple trees. Frigga's hand enveloped Thor's left while Odin's secured his right. Thor could have been leading them by the hand – he could still be king-like even in the new world. But he was resting now – he was just their child being held between them._

_"__As much as we wanted you to live without rush, we are relieved to be whole again," was one of the first things Frigga had said upon reunion._

_In the shade of a pink-flowered branch, Thor asked, "Was I missed by many here?"_

_"__Of course." Loki spoke from behind them. "We find it harder to hit people in the Worlds Below from this height."_

_"__Don't worry, his lies are easier to spot." Frigga rolled her eyes before Thor could retort._

_ "__Loki." _

_If Thor had ever forgotten their father's voice, the two stern syllables sent echoes through his skull like old church bells. He saw Loki tilt his head, as though filled with the bell peals too. _

_The old Allfather's eye twinkled briefly._

_"__Why don't you show your brother around?"_

* * *

"Keep in front, leader."

Over his shoulder, he spies halves and quarters of his brother's silhouette as Loki pushes through the waterfalls of moss hanging from the branches overhead. The flower buds half-buried in the moss catch the midday sun through the forest canopy, tiny goblets of liquid amber.

"It's not a race, Thor," is Loki's reply from somewhere behind layers of green.

The dark forest floor is padded with a patchwork of old leaves and families of moss in varying shades. It turns their footfalls into an uneven rhythm, crunches occasionally interrupting their moss-muffled steps.

"That's what you say when you know I'm winning." With each sentence, the aroma of old tree bark and fresh sap humidifies his nose and throat.

"You try to make it a race when you know you'd win."

Thor smiles although Loki cannot see it, but stops and waits.

" – and this time you would have to count getting lost as winning," Loki is saying, finally reaching Thor's side. They are standing atop a fallen tree trunk that bridges a deep crevasse in the mountain rock. The breadth of the trunk is as high as most houses that Thor remembers from Old Asgard, and dead yet thriving with its own miniature cities of fungi. "Remember who actually knows how to navigate these mountain forests."

"Keep in front then," Thor repeats, following Loki down the length of the infested log. They barely glance down, unafraid of dying in a realm of afterlife. Thor is unsurprised at how easy he finds it to shrug off the danger, just as he did in life; he wonders if Loki can.

Thor hears his brother say ahead of him, "After nearly three millennia together, one might think we could get through a hike without quarrel."

He frowns although Loki's back is to him. "Where's the fun in that?"

"The hike, perhaps?"

His frown remains. "How long has it been since we crossed the outer ring of the forest?" Surely a considerable deal of time already.

"Quarter of an hour."

He watches his brother suddenly disappear before him as Loki steps off the log onto the other side of the crevasse. He hears the soft _whump _as Loki lands, and it is strange to think how unobtrusive they have become in death, only hikes, quarrels, and _whumps_, not steel biting steel and cities cracking in half.

Thor drops beside him – _whump _– remarking, "Perhaps if you told me where we are going, I would stop badgering."

The trees and other shrubs look much the same to Thor in the weak sunlight, like a wallpaper pattern.

Loki continues forward confidently as though he sees a door. "To the top."

* * *

Like a cat with all nine lives, the day stretches lazily before them. They hike steadily upwards, nodding curtly to other passing wanderers. Thor alternates between following, surpassing, and jostling his brother. As he does, he senses no more undercurrent of bitterness, growing like a foetus or rotting like a corpse. As if they are only children again, before it mattered who won the most sparring rounds or nods of approval from grownups.

Maybe, Thor thinks, his time – their time – is a cycle, not a line. Maybe Loki alone in death was painful because until Thor joined him, they could not return to their unblemished childhood, where they are now.

(Maybe now Thor has more time for this)

(To keep it like this)

When the sky is finally charred with dusk, he realises he has settled into a walking pace beside his brother.

Eventually, they rest beneath an oak, upon a mountain cliff that is permeated by the tree's colossal roots like great veins. It reminds Thor of the way they sat and leant against Odin's legs as children at the end of a full day, two tired L-shapes on the floor with their legs sprawled before them. The roots are high and thick enough to ride horses through, if they were hollow, curving protectively around them like a giant's embrace.

Their peaceful scene reminds him of their early years also because they rest not so much out of tiredness, but because they can. Before this, most of their traveling – even before the treaty with Jotunheim had broken – had not left time like this to admire the strange nocturnal fungi and flora. For once, the campfire between them glows unconcealed from potential pursuers, as though they have opened a cage of gold birds. As he leans back against the cool bark, Thor thinks that he could get used to travel for the sake of travel. Not having his horse buckle suddenly beneath him, gored by a spear, or sleeping in broken shifts that left him thinking he may as well not sleep at all.

Lounging against a gnarled knot of root with the air of someone on a throne, Loki is absentmindedly flicking twigs into the fire, which occasionally sputters in protest. Following his brother's faraway gaze, Thor realises how close to the mountain summit they must be – he can see Valhalla's ocean and smaller mountain ranges lain out beyond the cliff edge. The treetops of the forest on the foothills they had spent the day navigating now sway below them.

To their west, the mountain caps look like hunks of unpolished amethyst and the ocean from their earlier walk along the shoreline has donned a dark, flat nightgown. There is a second sunset in the east – the main palace is strewn with lanterns like a nest of fireflies. It is strange to think how unobtrusive they have become in death – two gods on a mountain, for a hike, not a reign.

After an hour of silence, Thor tries again. "Loki, what waits for us at the top of this mountain?"

"A nice view of Valhalla, I imagine, if nothing else."

"Do you imagine there is something else?"

"Only if I let my imagination roam to wilder regions." Loki says.

"Such as?"

"Well now, they aren't relevant to us."

"Your lies really are easier to spot."

Thor watches the firelight exaggerate the sharpness of Loki's raised eyebrow.

"Why do you imagine I'm lying now, Brother?"

"This hike is more than a leisurely tour to show me the spectacles of Valhalla, isn't it?"

"Answer my question first."

"You haven't answered mine yet – "

"I have."

" – why are we going to the top?"

"It's boring elsewhere." Loki shrugs. "Why do you think I'm lying?"

Loki's cageyness and Thor's doggedness, upon collision, usually fostered arguments that roved in circles until Old Asgard's dining halls had emptied. Thor supplies, "Mother said you were restless ever since you arrived in Valhalla."

Loki tilts his head carefully in the same way that Thor remembers. "Was 'restless' the term that she used?"

Thor lets another quiet moment be his answer.

He says, "She and Father had hoped my own arrival would ease your disquiet."

"It's generally _too _quiet in Valhalla…"

"After all those years of war and mischief, I would have thought that even you would like to uphold some peace and quiet."

Loki laughs briefly. "Peace wasn't the same as quiet, here."

"She and Father said you have still been restless since I arrived."

Loki smiles blandly. "Did they, now?"

"What's at the peak of this mountain?"

"What is at the peak of Valhalla, and therefore of all of the World Tree."

"That's barely an answer, Loki."

"It's the truth."

"Why do you care for what is at the top of the universe?"

Loki's mouth widens further, showing teeth. Even if his brother's lies are easier to notice, Thor cannot tell if the smile is ominous. "Father told me to show you around."

"Show me soon, then."

"You'll see tomorrow."

Visions of ethereal portals, magic-charged artefacts, and Nick Fury, surface in Thor's head. "And you have already?"

"Only in my imagination."

Thor exhales his irritation. "You must promise to reveal all, in due time."

"Of course." His brother shrugs. "In due time."

"Tomorrow," Thor emphasises, tossing a thin branch into the smoldering fire.

"Very well." Silence re-settles over them until their campfire is a mere puddle of amber.

"So if Frigga did not use 'restless' to describe my behaviour before you arrived," Loki says, "what did she say?"

Thor can only make out one half of his brother's expression in the failing light. "She said my long absence was not easy." He omits that his long absence was not easy for himself either.

"Hm." Loki suddenly tilts his head back, and murmurs, "Speak of the devil."

Thor glances up just in time to see the shower of shooting stars before their trails fade behind them. At this height, at the top of the universe, the dome of the sky seems almost close enough to touch.

"Wait for it," Loki says.

They see a distinct, rogue flash of amber like a runaway from the herd. A question, for the two of them – their mother's love spans the sky. Predictably, the caw of a pair of ravens soon follows in the treetops below them like a ghost.

They sigh to cover the shared sense of mortification, because they can afford to feel mortified about their blessings instead of painstakingly counting them, these days.

"Four thousand years later, and they still try to track us whenever we leave," Loki remarks. "As if we're not already grown adults."

"As if we're not already dead," Thor adds.

His brother raises his palm as though to catch the strange splashes of light and sound, or to call their attention. A flare of gold-green suddenly stains the navy sky, chasing Frigga's signature like an echo. It almost looks like a familiar green cape before it disappears. Thor sends a silent flicker of lightning to join them.

"But if it puts her and Odin at ease." Thor says. Loki gives a quiet hum in agreement.

The fire is dying softly. There is a constant breeze brushing the cliff face and rippling the treetops below, but in its lulls, Thor can hear the ocean.

"We really damaged them in life, didn't we?" He asks without it sounding at all like a question.

Loki answers, "Hardly without a preceding spark."

"I think that hardly justifies us."

"Past justification isn't what I would search for in an afterlife, if I were you."

Without much expectation, Thor probes, "Tell me what we are searching for, then."

"I told you, we may see tomorrow."

The last of the campfire is dwindling to charcoal.

"Goodnight then, Brother."

Not even the nighttime at the top of the universe is blacker than a raven, so they both see the feather drift down from somewhere above, and land lovingly between them.

* * *

**P.S. The kind PMs or reviews you have written for me over the past several months have been stored close to my heart, even though I have not yet replied. **


	3. Chapter 3

**I'll keep this short - thank you for being here, I love you (genuinely, even though I almost certainly don't know you), and hope you are okay.**

**Now, enjoy chapter 3 :) Any and all PMs or Reviews welcome (except for flaming; I've run out of water).**

* * *

There was one time, when he was nine, that Thor snuck away from his old professor's lessons in Healer technology to try climb the tallest tree in Asgard's palace courtyards.

He no longer remembers the exact scars or bruises he proudly collected from the venture, or the exact punishment he bore from his professor and father afterwards. He recalls the sensation of his head breaking through the leaves of the highest branches like a bird hatching from an egg. The sunlight dazzling him a moment before the view of the gardens and surrounding city did. The breeze had brushed his hair back as though to give him the best view, before the shouts of several watchmen in adjacent parapets pelted him like stones to bring him down. The feeling he has now is similar – a sense of triumph despite no one to congratulate him for making it there, except for crisp mountain wind slapping his back, unfiltered sunlight winking at him before showing him the expanse of Valhalla. Thor lets his eyes gather up the landscape, too wide for his arms to hold.

Unlike Old Asgard, where the colossal city dominated the centre of the world, the Halls of Valhalla sit amicably to the side of wild forests, mountain ranges, plains of marsh and sand, and lakes that reach out to touch the sea. What looks like a great whirlpool churns near the sea's horizon. Thor cannot be sure at this distance, even from this height, but he thinks beyond the furthest mountain ridge he can see snow.

He thinks perhaps a great artist has used the other realms like a paint palette – Muspelheim red, Jotun blue– to create the final masterpiece. Maybe really the only flower on the World Tree is Valhalla, their living lives needed by the Norns to build something greater.

But very little of it reminds Thor of Earth, or at least the most significant places he had visited. Up there, it could be easy to forget the days he spent in Jane Foster's and Selvig's laboratories or S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, were they not entwined with the deeper coils of his brain.

In the corner of his eye, he sees the sunrise is coloured with shades of Asgardian gold. A sudden twinge of homesickness amazes him, aged like a wine and both milder and more pungent because of the missing years.

Loki: the most crooked voice of Thor's sentiments. "I wonder if there's a way out of here."

"Out of here?" Thor knows exactly what his brother means but ribs him anyway. "Aren't you the one who was leading the way?"

"Out of Valhalla, moron." And Thor knows Loki can tell that he knows exactly what he meant.

"Brother." Thor regards him solemnly. He takes a deep breath. "I'm not a moron."

Loki's whip-crack laugh lashes back at the crisp air. The breeze is snapping at their cheeks, their foreheads, offended that the notion of leaving has already surfaced. A familiar phrase to Thor: _Loki started it_.

As if they are alive, Thor still tries halfheartedly to set his brother's crooked words straight before they can corkscrew out of control into crooked ideas. "And that is a moronic idea, by the way."

As if they are alive, Loki's smile is already crooked.

"Well," Loki says, "aren't you forgetting the times you yourself aspired to go off-world in pursuit of some ill-advised adventure or another?"

"I believed those were for the good of our realm back then."

Thor thinks of themselves thousands of years younger, sitting on a set of stone stairs, their roles reversed.

_No, no, no, no, no, I know that look_

His own younger, foolish smile. _We're going to Jotunheim_

"You'd only consider leaving Valhalla if it were for the good of a realm?"

Thor sees how his brother gazes at the landscape. Like his eyes are picking it apart, overturning mountains, sifting through trees, dispassionately as though memorising it, not marveling at it.

He nudges his brother's shoulder. "We can't return to life, Loki."

Loki's gaze flickers only momentarily to him before resuming its strangely hungry search. "I don't mean resurrection, Thor. Whether we're within or without Valhalla doesn't define us as living or dead. What if we simply found a way out of Valhalla to the other realms?"

Indeed, by the ends of their lives, some facets of each of them seem to have switched, like exchanging parts of two automatons, experimenting on how they will function. His brother would have once been the one warning him to stay put and find a different way. Thor's old self would have resisted like a wild horse pulling on reigns.

(And his earlier mother would be heartbroken, and his past father would crumple into the Odinsleep)

Thor stores away many of his living memories – a crushed hammer, grief soaked in brandy, Frigga's blood upon the floor – in an opaque casket. Lovingly. Tightly.

"We've had our time, Loki. We move on. We're not gods."

He does not want to return to that life after he has lived it the first time.

Thor adds, "While I do believe that you, who knew pathways out of Old Asgard that were secret to even Heimdall, must have searched for such passages out of Valhalla in the years before I arrived… Even if you found any, I think we all ought to stay here."

The morning has ripened completely. The full daylight bathes the landscape like it has been poured generously from above, so that everything looks fresh and burnished. The forests appear to shimmer as they ripple with the wind, and the Hall of Valhalla gleams like a beacon even without its lanterns. Thor feels a spark of irritation as he observes Loki overlooking the world's beauty in favour of a way out; back to his destructive – destroyed – life that he should have lived when he was alive.

"Why?" Loki asks.

"Why? Why this sudden preoccupation with leaving_, _Brother?" Thor asks, "Will you not be happy here, with us?"

_Finally_, Thor could add.

At the tip of Yggdrasil is where Thor realises just how much he has changed. He is still the almighty Thor, but afterwards. His life was tiring, and ultimately satisfying. Now he is content to rest.

"I am happy." Loki replies as easily as if confirming the sun is up, an eyebrow raised.

"Then do not wish for escape." Thor wants them to finally rest.

(Their family is finally whole again)

Loki states, "I wouldn't brand it _escape_ if one intended to return afterwards."

"So, a vacation then?"

Loki brushes off Thor's growing sarcasm like cobwebs off a chair he is about to sit on. "Perhaps."

"Brother." Thor studies his face incredulously, searching for a sign of laughter – or what had Tony called it? A punchline – he is certain must be there. "We are in _Valhalla_, the realm beyond realms. Any _vacation_ you could take would not match this our new home."

Loki falls silent, but Thor does not miss how his jade eyes narrow slightly at the last word. They are two stone statues swathed by the wind while Thor senses they are regarding each other carefully. He is reminded of the time they were hunched on the clifftop in Svartalfheim, waiting for Malekith to notice before Loki conjured the illusion of a knife to stab into Thor's stomach. There had been a split second of wariness – right before the knifepoint had landed – where Thor had wondered if he would instead feel a solid blade dig into his organs. Thor has never told Loki this.

Loki looks away, either away from Thor's expression, or towards the horizon.

"You're yet to make good on your promise," Thor reminds him. "Tell me what you were expecting to find at the top of this mountain."

Loki only glances back at him to tilt his head, as if surprised he is even asking.

"You only brought us up here to search for a way out of Valhalla, didn't you?"

Thor cannot help but shake his head. Loki sighs, somehow sounding tired despite it is evidently only Thor who is willing to rest.

"As I said, it's not escape."

"But what do you imagine would happen to you if you tried to leave?" Thor presses.

"I don't know yet."

Thor hears the silent second half of his brother's thought. _But I want to find out_.

"Yet?" He pins down the word like a rare insect, holding it out to Loki for inspection.

Loki smiles easily. "I'm sure you'd find a way to save us if we ran into any trouble."

"I wouldn't go with you even if you found a way." Thor wants to keep their conversation within hypothetical boundaries.

"Yet."

Without Thor meaning to, a low growl of thunder reverberates overhead as though a giant beast stirs behind the clouds.

"For the last time, Brother," he warns, "abandon this absurdity."

Loki waves a hand at the rolling clouds. "Turn that off. They'll send the Valkyries if they think we're in peril. Or fighting each other."

Since he and his brother had died, the range of people to which 'they' could be referring to has narrowed considerably.

Thor counters, "Imagine what Frigga and Odin would do if they discovered we _left the afterlife_."

"Which is why we wouldn't let them find out."

"Loki." There is such gravity in Thor's tone that the name falls like a stone down the side of the mountain. It likely leaves chips or creates echoes where it bounces. He waits for the name's owner to look at him. "We really damaged them in life."

Not even Thor knows the full details of their father's goriest acts or their mother's deepest torments, but he knows that they wish to finally be at peace, just as he does. He watches the resolve in his brother's eyes wane into resignation, like waiting for the last embers of a fire to die. He hopes the expression promises Loki's compliance. That Loki will let them all rest.

Thor lets several beats of silence pass before he asks, "Didyou find any real ways out of Valhalla before I arrived?"

"None." There is still a grey note of dissatisfaction in Loki's tone. The whole creamy blue sky does nothing to lighten his expression. "Only dead ends."

"Valhalla is not a dead end, Brother." Thor says. He places a hand on Loki's shoulder, to lift his spirits, to anchor him to the same realm. "We are at rest."

Loki says no more as turns his back on the view, toward the way they had come.

* * *

Thor cannot fathom the full depth of his brother's mood during their return trip through the rings of mountain forest, despite that they take their time so the journey stretches for several days longer than it otherwise would. _His lies are easier to spot_, said their mother, but it is still like trying to study the phases of a moon. The unlit halves and quarters would remain so utterly hidden to Thor despite that he can see the very craters and mountains marking its other side, just adjacent, bathed in white light. Even from a crowded lane studded with lanterns; even when they were home.

(Loki had been briefly fascinated by the moons orbiting Old Asgard, when he was small enough for Thor to guide by the hand through busy streets)

(_Eyes forth, Brother_

A tiny finger pointed skyward – _Thor, the moons_

_Hurry forward, Father is already far ahead _

_The moons, Thor_

_Come on now, Loki_)

Despite this tension, the other strands between them still thrum with light energy as they travel, for which Thor is grateful. They may not be gods, but they are thousands of years old. They have spun more than one string between themselves in all that time. When Loki jokes, Thor still laughs.

They occasionally encounter other travelers – Jotuns, Light Elves, Kronans, other species Thor had not seen in eons – but for the most part, the air is stirred only by the path of the wind and their own voices.

After an hour of early evening silence, Thor chooses to remark, "You may scoff the sentimentality, but I have missed this."

Loki twists around while brushing aside the foliage in their path. "This?"

"A simple journey, with a companion," Thor ducks beneath a branch. "And without bloodthirst."

"My oh my, you have indeed changed." Thor thinks he sees Loki roll his eyes as he turns forward again. "Must be the old age."

"The _wisdom_, you mean."

"You know that definitely isn't what I mean."

"I could have accumulated great wisdom like Father during my additional living years, while you idled in Valhalla." Thor points out.

The crunch of their constant footsteps is suspended again as Loki once more stops and glances back at him. "The peaceable wisdom of Father who built Asgard out of the gold from civilisations slain with your sister?"

They look at each other.

Thor nods. "Exactly."

After a moment, the wingbeats and caws of Odin's ravens rustle through the trees.

"I think he heard you," Thor says.

They exchange another glance. Usually Loki is more apt at holding a straight face, but this time he cracks the first grin.

"Sorry, Father." Loki hollers over his shoulder as they resume walking. Thor snorts. "Oh, of course he doesn't use his ravens to spy on me when I _apologise_ – "

"I'm sure he'll persuade you to apologise in person upon our return."

"I hope not," Loki says. "What a shame, to ruin the state of refreshment we will surely be in upon return after this journey of serenity. A true retreat, this, for the mind and soul alike."

Thor says nothing for a long while. The air is filled with the scent of trampled moss and leaves, which seems a peaceful enough sensation to hide the frown Thor feels budding his brow.

"Is the notion so ridiculous to you?" he decides to ask.

Loki's tone is artificially pleasant in the same way that perfume is sweet. "What do you mean, Brother?"

Though he no longer has view of Loki's face, Thor can hear something else creeping into the conversation. More like a venom than the acid of his brother's usual sarcasm. Thor answers flatly to bar its way in. "That peaceful times are worth cherishing."

"No." Loki shrugs. "But I'm sure I could ridicule you regardless."

Thor watches him raise a hand that is suddenly cupping light like a liquid. Thor nearly had let go unnoticed that dusk had settled over the mountains and filtered through the treetops. The three evenings past, they had encountered breaks in the tree line that had let them witness the lighting of the lanterns of Valhalla's Hall. They were lit from the bottom floors up, as though someone were dropping coins from above into a growing, glittering pile.

Thor nearly rams into his brother as Loki suddenly whirls around to face him.

"This is wrong." Loki's words are drawn taut like a bowstring.

Thor realises how ludicrous it is that he had believed his training would dessert him so soon after entering the afterlife. He feels Stormbreaker's handle already in his palm as he sweeps his gaze over the surrounding undergrowth, and in his mind he analyses every sound.

"Is something coming?"

Loki sighs, shaking his head. It makes Thor strangely warier than the prospect of an oncoming predator. The toes of their boots nearly touch. Thor steps back when it is clear that Loki will not, a huff of breath between them touching the tip of his nose.

He doubts he would be able to read the expression before him even without the gloom. The light simmering in Loki's palm dances over their frozen figures while Thor waits for his brother to explain.

"I'll rephrase." The profile of Loki's face wanes into a crescent moon as he looks away. He appears almost awkward. "This is weird."

"Er." Thor casts around in his head for any clues but finds nothing. He simply blinks. "What?"

Loki waves around the hand without the light in an all-encompassing gesture. "This is weird."

"What is?"

"All of it."

"You make nothing clearer, Brother."

Thor watches with growing incredulity as Loki at last steps back and seems to glare at the ground as though it has disappointed him. "This whole journey feels wrong."

Thor feels his forehead crease with bewilderment. "You're the one who proposed it."

"And I've realised during that it is not for us."

"Speak straight for once, Loki," Thor nearly growls. There is the familiar irritation when his brother uses his most twisted tongue. "It has been free of incident so far, has it not?"

"Exactly." Loki bites out. "We walked up and down a mountain for several days together and without incident. Wonderful. It's not us."

Loki tosses his handful of light onto the forest floor like throwing down dice. It warms, from its neutral white into an amber until it resembles a campfire. Its radius of light grows enough for them to claim it as a makeshift campsite.

"We've had similar peaceful travels before as younger men on Asgard and other benevolent realms." Thor paces a few steps, and realises they have taken him so that he is opposite Loki; the fire crackles between them. All fragments of colour amid the black of his brother's clothes bleed into dark red in the firelight. As the flames jump, the spears of shadow around Loki could almost form his demon-horned helmet.

"Until they became journeys for the sake of assignments. And violence."

"It was in Asgard's name."

"Not our latest spells of violence."

Thor realises his own eyes are narrowed, as if to either see Loki more clearly, or to see less of him. An old memory springs open spontaneously, of destroying a forest on Midgard. Thor remembers – it was upon first meeting the man of iron and the soldier in blue. "What, then, Brother? Do you want us to fight and hate each other as before, tearing down cities and their armies in the process?"

Their silhouettes are stretched by the firelight into titans as tall as the trees, thrown against the surrounding trunks. It is strange that all it takes to turn them into two giants again is a little fire.

"No. I want us to fight and hate others, tearing down their cities and armies, together."

Yesterday it was at the very tip of Yggdrasil where Thor had realised how much he had changed. The almighty Thor, but afterwards. Desperate to finally stand down.

"How can that be, Brother?"

But Thor knows. It is in the way Loki paces, and glares at the sky like he wishes to be anywhere else.

Loki's life had been tiring, too.

"I was not there to see the end."

But the Loki, afterwards, must have been unsatisfied.

"Of Thanos and the Snap? You still had a hand in it." Thor argues. "And we acknowledged you too, in the end, even the other Avengers – "

Or perhaps it is Loki who is insatiable. It is in the way his gaze would seem angry if it did not seem so lost.

"In the end. But I wanted to bethere for it." Loki says. "The end."

Maybe they really have come to the close of a circle of time. They could be back to their childhood – his younger brother is looking for another way to disturb their longsuffering family peacetime. His younger brother, always wanting more.

"What do you mean to happen now, then?" Thor feels like they will have a long night ahead. He seats himself on a thick tree root as Loki remains standing. "Will you sneak enemies into Valhalla to wreak havoc, just for the joy of fending them off like heroes?"

"I thought about it."

Thor pictures the Hall of Valhalla swarming with Chitauri-like creatures wielding fire and blades, but this brings forth a memory of another set of golden halls, laid to waste by Dark Elves, that he wishes not to recall. He shakes his head slowly. "You are selfish still."

"I am Loki." His brother responds with no hint of inflection or irony.

For several seconds Thor can only glower at him through the veil of smoke.

"We are a day away from home," Thor says. He emphasises the word 'home'. "Put this out of your head, and when we return – "

Loki tilts his head coldly enough to extinguish the campfire were he to look down from Thor.

" – don't. Do anything. Stupid."

Thor knows that his brother knows it annoys him when Loki avoids agreeing to a promise. The smile that returns through the smoke is as false as the words accompanying. "Heaven forbid."

"Think of what Frigga and Odin would go through if we did not make it back."

There is some relief when he sees that gives Loki pause. Thor paces again, this time circling the fire to place a hand on his brother's shoulder. He receives a sullen glare in return. "Think of what they have already gone through."

Loki's response is soft and strangely accusing. "I thought we were going to fight side by side forever."

A rusty bell is struck in the back of Thor's memory. He is unsure what else his brother is trying to convey, but if Loki will not voice it then let that be his own problem. Thor lifts his hand from his shoulder.

"We're after forever now, Brother." Thor tries to make him see. "We've had our time."

Once more, the response is soft and accusing.

"_You_ did."

* * *

**(I'm unsure how long it may take for chapter 4 to arrive, but I'm sure you've got plenty else on your plate to keep you occupied - take care)**


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's note: I couldn't really think of anything particularly meaningful to write at the top here.**

***Smiles***

* * *

Thor feels lighter as he walks from his chamber to the main hall; he has removed his heavy riding coat in favour of a plain shirt and jacket that remind him of the attire he often wore on Earth. He stops just outside the pair of double doors to wait for his companion and watches other residents trickle through the corridor. Streams of morning light fall through the arched windows along the hallway, enough to illuminate the forming kaleidoscope of different species. It vaguely reminds Thor of when he had elbowed his way through the streets on Sakaar an eternity ago, but more peaceful, like jagged pieces of a jigsaw puzzle fitting together.

"Next time, I've got the far one."

Thor smiles before he turns. Sif looks similarly refreshed from their morning ride, face scrubbed clean for breakfast.

"No doubt." Thor says. "You let me hit that target this time out of courtesy, yes?"

"You know, when you make Stormbreaker alter its trajectory to strike a target, it spoils the fun when we are out for target practice."

"Not as fun as using your horse to jostle mine off path to give you a clear shot?"

"You must have been still asleep." She retorts. "I rely on no foul play. That's your own poor jockeying."

Thor laughs as they enter the main hall. The cream marble ceiling soars overhead to accommodate the sunlight as well as people; dozens of arched windows let the pale light infuse the room like a steeping strainer of dandelion tea. "Well, if my scorekeeping is correct, I believe we still tied this morning."

"I shot more targets this time, I'm afraid – " Sif says archly.

"No, remember those hidden amid the trees. We hit them each at the same times."

"Your axe may have shattered them, but it was my spear that struck the bullseyes – "

Their banter is still as easy as walking, for Thor. He feels a new grin as they see the table where Volstagg, Hogun and Fandral sit, beneath a window through which he can see mountain ranges.

The main hall of Valhalla's citadel is not furnished with the orderly rows of long banquet tables that Thor is familiar with. Burnished tables of various shapes, sizes and heights fill the chamber like mosaic tiles; he imagines that every one is able to find a comfortable seat. Loki told him once that the Hall of Valhalla grows subtly like a living thing according to its number of inhabitants.

At the round table they occupy, a pot of steaming golden tea waits for them as they begin to eat.

* * *

When they rode home that dawn from the field they had used for target practice, Thor had wondered at Sif's laughter as they had trained. It was carefree, same as the way she held herself now, as if she had never seen a day's war all her living life. It buoyed his own spirits.

In the stables, he had said impulsively, "This suits you."

"What does?"

"Being in Valhalla."

Her slanting eyebrows had risen. "Being dead, you mean?"

"Being free."

She had smiled with teeth, and not for the first time, Thor had thought how well-suited Sif would have been as a Valkyrie.

"I know I am oft silent," Hogun had interjected after a moment, "but I do prefer you save your special moments for when I am not here."

Because she became suddenly uncomfortable, and Loki was still an easy distraction, Sif had asked, "And how does that brother of yours occupy himself in death?"

"For real, this time," she had added. Thor could sense her eye-roll without looking at her.

He had stroked his mare's silky neck before locking her door. "Hopefully without doing anything stupid, is all I'll say for now."

She had snorted. "Here's to hoping."

"You have no idea."

* * *

"How do you see Loki now?" Thor asks Sif. He mops up the dregs of herbed oil from his plate with a hunk of bread studded with seeds. Sif pops a blackberry into her mouth before she answers amid the surrounding chatter from other tables. The Warriors Three had left to pack, having planned a week's journey to discover the outer western regions of Valhalla for themselves.

"It is hard to tell at times," she says. "I think… during our younger years I detested the aura he always had that he was brewing mayhem beneath the surface, almost as much as I detested the chaos when it finally emerged."

A strawberry this time. "Now that we exist in a time after his chaos, I'm more at ease around him knowing he won't be plotting further trickery in this haven. At least, no life-threatening trickery."

"Two nights ago, I entered the banquet chambers for the evening meal and saw him already dining beside Fandral. I automatically made to sit on Fandral's other side although it would have meant squeezing myself between he and another diner while there was an easy space beside Loki. I figured I ought not to bear grudges still in this afterlife and took the free seat."

"And?"

"And then we ate." She says simply. "And not in grim silence. His jokes are still annoying as ever, but now –" she shrugs "– it seems he is just your brother again."

Thor finds this last statement vaguely amusing – as if Loki has just recovered from a disease or delirious fever. "He is Loki."

"Is this question not just of mere curiosity?" Sif looks at him over her empty plate. "Has he squirreled himself away like he used to among the library books and magic artefacts and caused you concern?"

"Rather he has proven more outgoing than ever." Thor flicks a cherry pip on his plate with his fingertip, making a tiny _ping _as it strikes his mug; the sound feels something like an understatement. The hall is nearly empty, and the assortment of glasses filled with the last inches of different drinks form a strange rainbow glinting across the tables. "We returned from journeying up Valhalla's tallest mountain not a fortnight ago, and already he has made at least two other trips alone to other new places since then. He tells Mother and Father he wishes to explore the other areas of the realm. Now, he is away travelling east."

"What lies east?"

"Lakes. Woodlands. Marshlands." As he lists the landscapes Thor tries to imagine his brother in each, alone and peacefully cloud-watching. Each picture is unconvincing.

When Loki raises his eyebrow, it is a cynical question. Sif uses the expression now – it is a firm statement. "And you don't believe that. So what do you think he's up to?"

"I don't believe he is planning anything in particular." The words taste flawed as he says them and thinks back to the top of the universe.

_I wouldn't brand it escape if one intended to return afterwards_

_So a vacation then_

Thor adds, "I think he is just… unsatisfied." Outside the nearest window, the branches of an olive tree cast shadows over the polished floor; they catch Thor's eye when they shift for a second into the shape of curved horns.

Sif frowns. "With Valhalla?"

Together, they stand and stack their plates. Thor responds with another question. "Do you ever go to the seaside?"

He can guess her answer without reading her expression. She is his oldest childhood friend besides Loki, after all.

(And her life had been tiring, and satisfying)

"I've gone for the odd swim on rare occasions." She downs the last mouthful of her tea before turning toward the doors. "But you know I prefer to stick to the shore."

* * *

Thor wonders if that had been a bad idea.

He stands just shy of the saltwater, on the strip of sand along the shoreline where it is damp and compact. On the black ocean there are a million shards of moonlight as though a giant has dropped a glass bottle. If he closes his eyes, smelling and listening to only the breeze and brine, he could be standing anywhere else by the sea's side. Maybe on a clifftop in Norway.

But even if it were a bad idea, it is now no longer only an idea – he had already chosen to wade forward once more and let the warm water soak his boots and socks, and mind. Thor could have refrained, and just enjoyed an hour on the moonlit sand before going home to bid goodnight to his friends and parents. Now, he replays behind his eyes the fresh scenes from the lower realms.

"So lovely an evening to be at the beach, isn't it?"

She speaks from the dry sand several feet behind him. The sinking of her heels in the white powder does not diminish her grace in the slightest as she approaches, smiling.

"Very much so," Thor agrees.

His mother stops beside him so the white-lipped tide can only reach hopelessly for her toes. In her silvery dress and the silvery moonlight, Thor thinks she must look like an archangel.

"How was your day?"

Her questions always so genuine – Thor can tell she only wants to know. Even while he is soaking wet from the waist down, obvious to have just been watching the other realms, she asks about the rest of his day.

"It was a good day. Sif and I rode at dawn to the fields beyond those hills behind the Halls and had more target practice. I won, by the way. Father and I spent a long while this afternoon simply walking the courtyards and talking of… many things." Thor knows his smile is rueful. He still finds it funny that he had earlier fancied himself as world-weary as Odin by the time he had entered Valhalla, and then realised how wrong he was while he and his father spoke. "The Warriors Three left to travel west to see more of Valhalla, but say they should return after several days."

"They'll not get through a tenth of it." Frigga says. "It seems this world is ever expanding."

Thor says, "I think Loki said something similar."

"Likely."

Then he wonders if his mother has come here only to look for him, or for other reasons of her own.

"How much of Valhalla have you seen for yourself?" He asks.

"Only and all that I care to see," Frigga replies.

"I'll tell you a secret, Thor." She takes his hand gently in hers, seemingly not minding its semi-dry layer of seasalt. Despite her words and their dark surroundings, everything feels serene. "Sometimes I forget that we're all dead."

Thor peers at her closely. Her clear eyes are not at all upset. "What do you mean?"

"Today I returned to the Halls after visiting the witches' gardens in the north-east. I saw your father, your brother, and now you, and I could ask each of you how your day went just as if we are alive." Frigga smiles at the waves reflected in her eyes. "It's everything I've longed for."

Thor holds their clasped hands over his heart for a moment. "Mother, your secret is safe with me."

"I'm sure it is, Son."

"And I'm overjoyed that you're at peace."

She turns her smile to him. "I think we each deserve a little of that."

"I couldn't agree more." Thor pauses. "Loki's back?"

"Loki's back." It is another voice that replies with a flourish.

They both turn. Loki stands on the powdery sand where Frigga had been a few minutes earlier, filling her footprints. A dark blue travelling cloak with its silver fastenings still swirls around him.

"Glad to see you've freed yourself and your cloak from all those thorns." Frigga's eyes are light with amusement.

"What thorns?" Thor asks before Loki can respond.

"Your brother fell into some brambles on his return trip. Don't tease him." Frigga winks. Thor grins while Loki sighs.

"Thank you, Mother." Loki gives her a dry salute with two fingers.

"Always, Son."

"Always." Thor adds solemnly.

"Shut up, Thor."

Frigga snorts. She supplies to Loki, "Sif bested him in target practice again this morning."

Loki grins while Thor sighs.

"The balancer of the scales as always, Mother." Thor remarks.

She just laughs and brushes a light palm over each of their left cheeks before she disappears.

"How did you manage to fall into a bramble bush?" Thor asks as Loki takes Frigga's place beside him.

"I didn't fall. My horse was startled, and she threw me."

"Oh, of course."

"Sif tells me you can only outdo her when you have Stormbreaker to aim for you."

"We'll call it even for now, alright, Brother?"

"Very well."

It is quiet for a few seconds as they watch the ocean.

"When did you return home?" Thor asks.

"A few hours ago. And then it took half an hour to rid myself of all the damn bramble thorns."

Thor chuckles, softly enough that the corners of his brother's mouth also lift slightly.

"Did Mother come here only to look for you?" Loki's real question remains as a shadow beneath his spoken one.

"I would say so," Thor answers.

"But do you think so?"

"I'd give her the benefit of the doubt," he says. Thor tries not to sound accusatory when he adds, "She says what she has in this afterlife is enough for her."

"Then what a blessing it is that she's satisfied." There is nothing sour about Loki's tone.

After a moment, Thor asks in return: "Are you here only because you were looking for me?"

"I would say so." Loki answers. Thor raises an eyebrow. "Sif said you might be here."

"I see."

"Speaking of seeing," Loki says, "Seen anything interesting?" He gives a pointed glance at the damp dark patches of Thor's trousers and shirt hem, and the beads of saltwater clinging to the leather of Thor's boots.

"I looked upon Midgard. Nothing too unusual." Thor murmurs.

"What's the usual?"

"Wars."

"Any aliens involved?"

"No."

"Well done, Earth." Loki murmurs.

"They've many causes for celebration too," Thor adds defensively.

"Such as?"

"It looked like many nations have advanced in their technologies to better preserve the land and oceans. At least, more and more appear to be flourishing, in both their natural and industrial forms." Thor says. "In harmony."

Loki's eyebrows rise slightly. "I thought you said you saw nothing unusual."

Thor claps a hand on his brother's shoulder. "You're the one who ought to tell me what you've seen lately, off traversing other areas of Valhalla as you've been."

"If I tell you, it'll spoil the surprise for when you explore it yourself."

"Brother, I don't get surprised."

"Lakes. Woodlands. Marshlands." Loki lists. "As I told you before I left."

Thor nods. "At least I'll be easily impressed when I do go. How did you navigate your way?"

"By the stars, suns, and my magic."

"Do you think you ever relied too much on your magic when we were alive? You would be lost without it, literally."

"In the same way you were lost, figuratively, without Mjolnir?"

"Hey, I overpowered our sister even after losing my hammer – "

"No you didn't, Surtur did – "

"After we freed him – "

"I freed him."

"I told you to free him – "

"Fine." Loki rolls his eyes. "There are also some friendly towns along the eastern coastline. Some pretty gardens too." Loki holds out his hand before them and opens it, as though offering something to – or begging from – the night sky. "Also picked this up on the sand back there when I got here." He gestures with his other hand vaguely over his shoulder. A pearl sits in the palm of his hand like a full moon.

"Pretty." Thor remarks.

"Common." Loki counters in a tone between boredom and disgust. Nonetheless, he lets Thor pluck the tiny sphere from his palm. It is warm from being held against his skin, smooth as a marble.

Thor feels his eyebrows rise again. "Common?"

"The things are so easy to find in this realm." Loki shrugs. "I saw dozens of pearls in the past several days, some still forming in their clams, by the coastline."

Thor rolls the pearl between his fingertips of one hand. He feels a tiny divot on its otherwise perfect surface. "So they need to be rare for you to appreciate them?"

"They need me to be in a good mood to appreciate them."

Thor turns to clasp his hand between his brother's neck and shoulder. He feels Loki tense beneath the thick blue fabric of his cloak. "And your mood is still sour now."

It seems for a second that Loki will reply with only more disdain. He looks at the hand resting on him. "Perhaps."

"I take it your recent ventures didn't quench your restlessness."

"If anything, they have stoked it."

Thor tilts his head as though it will help him to really see his brother. Unlike their mother, who turned almost celestial under the moon, the figure before him appears ghostly.

"Why?" Thor ventures.

Loki's words are bitter as though he is placing a curse. "Because they have shown me that everywhere in Valhalla is stagnant, not only us in our golden halls." He holds his hand out. Thor reluctantly gives back the pearl.

"The people here prosper in peace." Thor insists quietly.

His brother rolls the snowy orb between his fingertips as if he is trying to crumble it. "Meanwhile, you yourself have just seen so much havoc, so much potential, in the worlds around us and yet you're happy to languish here in _peace_."

And Thor watches his brother fling the pearl into the sea. Whatever splash it makes is drowned by the sound of waves.

"You still would wish for a civil war to break out across Valhalla just to give us a fight." He could be voicing either a statement or question.

"When we lived, you would tell me that life was about change."

Thor shakes his head. "If you haven't noticed, Loki – we're dead."

"Yet can still change, can't we?"

"Loki – "

"You were once willing to escape a world for its own good and for Yggdrasil's." His brother's expression is darker than the sea. "Please don't disappoint me – surely that hasn't changed."

Thor knows. He knows what Loki is trying to do, and he is immune to it now. If he were his much younger self, he knows he would have been easily tempted by the idea of another venture, another fight, for the good of something, or anything. Loki is looking at him obstinately, and he too reminds Thor of a much younger self, a younger Loki covertly trying to pick at loose threads to send everything unravelling.

Thor lets his own expression harden. "Whatever joys and destruction I saw in the worlds below are no longer in our hands, Loki. And you know it."

"We can fix that."

Thor narrows his eyes. "What are you planning?"

"Nothing, without you." The words would sound affectionate if they were from anyone else.

"Then you'll be planning nothing."

"Then there's no reason for me to be here."

Loki turns his back on the ocean to leave. But he pauses for a moment, crouches briefly and glances back at Thor.

"See – easily replaced." Thor automatically reaches out to catch the pale speck that his brother tosses to him. The pearl is practically identical to the first. When he looks up again, Loki is already several yards away, deepening their mother's footprints that she left just before.

When he is alone again, Thor sighs. He asks, offhand, aloud, of no one:

"So, how was your day?"

* * *

The knife buries itself into the board with a solid thud. Several yards of grassy field away, Loki takes his time preparing to throw the second blade. He lets his eyes drift upward, skyward, to rest on the moons and films of stars. They seem high enough overhead that he could pretend to be back on Old Asgard, not at the top of the World Tree. He returns his gaze to ground level in search of a free target. At least two dozen padded boards painted with bullseyes are hanging from the evergreen trees like garlands of a violent festival; most of them have a dagger lodged in their centre.

Before he throws, he hears someone entering the clearing from behind him – the sound of soft leather shoes on the grass.

"Not bad," she says.

"Then invite me to target practice next time," he suggests without turning around.

"We would if you weren't away so often," Sif replies.

Loki drops his shoulder with the weight of the knife in his hand. Before he launches it, a short spear slices the air from over his shoulder and strikes his prospective target. The board, with its new appendage, swings wildly on its branch, while Loki rolls his eyes.

"Of course you were going to do that." Before he turns around, he holds out the knife point-down over the great tree stump beside him, and lets go. The blade sinks into the natural bullseye formed by the concentric rings in the wood grain.

Sif stands at the clearing edge shrouded in her own wine-red traveling cloak. She smirks briefly before she crosses the field with him to the copse of trees where the targets hang. She twirls her spear absentmindedly like the handles of a fast clock, while waiting for him to recover the rest of his knives.

"So was Thor there?" She asks.

"Yes. Just as you said he would be." Loki replies. "His clothes were damp."

Sif's spear pauses mid-spin. "I believe he's wise enough to watch the living realms without envy."

"He certainly wasn't envious when I spoke with him."

She resumes twirling her spear slowly as she walks ahead to the other end of the clearing. "I doubt he would slip into pining for the life we left behind, spending all his days in the waters just for glimpses of the lower worlds."

"As I said, that doesn't seem like it will be an issue for our Thor." Loki says.

Sif adds, "He was halfway back to the Halls when I went to find him tonight after you did. He told me you might be here."

Loki selects a wide multi-edged dagger that nearly resembles a maple leaf. "Which makes it strange that you've chosen to come here." She flicks her eyes skyward, not in the way he had regarded the constellations earlier.

"Your brother worries over you." Sif's scrutiny follows the arc of his hand as he throws the blade. They wait for the thud and the rustle of disturbed leaves before he responds.

"I would rephrase that. Thor worries – " he raises his voice to her over his shoulder as he crosses the field " – about me doing something stupid." He yanks the dagger out to see the gash he left.

"He told me that this morning." Her volume matches his. "Now I'm starting to worry."

"Don't concern yourself. I'm not planning to jeopardise anyone's peace here." He is back by the stump, selecting another blade with as much deliberation as selecting his next book to read.

"It sounds like you might jeopardise your own." She moves closer until she is on the opposite side of the stump, as though they are having a discussion at a dinner table. "And that means your family's. Thor's."

He looks at her. "I won't jeopardise what I don't have."

"What are you planning?"

Loki whirls. Another target amidst the trees rocks violently on its branch, suddenly no longer blank.

"Too much flourish with your nondominant arm." Sif comments.

"What are you planning?" She repeats, not harshly.

Loki tugs the other dagger out of the stump between them. Another deep gouge. "Nothing, without Thor."

Maybe he sounds sincere enough, or she trusts him more. Sif just bows her head slightly although Loki highly doubts that answer is enough for her.

"What did you do while you were away?" She asks instead.

"Had a little 'me' time." Loki says, offhand. "Admired the scenery. Visited the towns along the eastern coastline."

"That's all?"

"What do you mean? That's what you, Thor, and the Warriors Three oft considered an enjoyable expedition when we were alive."

Sif's spear pauses again in its revolutions. Loki thinks how late it must be; Sif's spearhead even points straight upwards like clock hands at midnight.

"Like your brother," she says finally, "I'd implore that before you do anything _extreme_, to try and remember why you're here. You made it here against all odds, Loki. To Valhalla."

"Don't worry, you're not the only one who was amazed."

"You deserve some kind of peace."

"Why does everyone confuse boredom with peace?" Loki mutters.

"You're bored?" Sif's eyebrows are raised again, not scornfully. "And we thought Thor had the fighter's nature out of you two."

"It's not a fight that I'd wish for." Loki says.

"What, then?" She probes impatiently.

Loki just turns his back to her after a second and throws the next knife. He hears her depart the clearing behind him – the sound of soft leather shoes on the grass.

* * *

As he shutters the lantern in his chamber, Loki replays in his head the meeting with the witch, over and over and over again.


End file.
